Island of Death (13 page)

The Doctor gave the Brigadier an exasperated glance. ‘Well, of course he is, with a wind of this strength coming from the nor’nor’east and getting worse all the time. Much too dangerous to go with the wind. Even a ship this size could easily broach to, and founder...’

‘Broach to? What are you talking about?’

But the Doctor wasn’t listening. ‘Look! Look!’ he was crying, and pointing up into the scudding clouds.

What was he on about now? Nothing up there. Oh yes...

some bird or other.

‘It’s an albatross! A big ‘un too. That wingspan must be twelve feet if it’s an inch. What’s he doing in these latitudes?’

Not for the first time, the Brigadier was baffled by the Doctor. Having said that humanity was in the gravest danger, he seemed to have given up.

‘Stop worrying, Lethbridge-Stewart!’ The Doctor suddenly turned, almost as if he’d read his mind. ‘We’ll get there in the end - or we shan’t. We’ll save your extraordinary species - or they’ll be wiped out. There’s nothing we can do about it at the moment, is there?’

He just didn’t react like any normal human being - but then again that’s just what he wasn’t, was he?

Sarah had managed to get to her cabin, where she sat down heavily on the bunk. But that made her feel worse. With each roll of the ship, she could feel her bum rising in the air as if she was becoming as weightless as she would in a spaceship; and then, before she actually took off, she was thrust back down, with her guts following a few seconds later. The result was inevitable.

With frequent visits to the washbasin, which was nearer than the loo, she eventually came to the point where she was heaving and retching, with no result.

When this subsided, she delicately hoisted herself onto the bunk and lay back. If she’d been on a normal Royal Navy ship, she’d have been fine. But the luxury of a bunk very nearly as wide as her divan in Hampstead meant that she kept rolling from side to side with the motion of the ship. It was worse than trying to stay upright.

What was she doing there? Investigative journalist? That was a laugh. At this precise moment she’d have swapped all her hopes of fame and fortune for the comfortable stability of a supermarket checkout, or a nice gentle job sweeping the roads.

There was a knock at the door.

Bob Simkins appeared. ‘Chris told me that you weren’t feeling quite the thing. You okay?’

She grabbed the edge of the bunk and lifted her head. ‘Just bring me a slug of arsenic and I’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘Oh, sugar!’ she cried, as the
Hallaton
took a violent swing to starboard and she cracked her head on the wall as she went with it. She struggled to sit up. But now that felt even worse.

Hang on,’ said Bob, ‘I’ll soon sort you out.’

He disappeared, and within a couple of minutes was back with a largish green suitcase.

‘Here you are,’ he said. ‘Move over in the bed.’ And he jammed her into the pit of the bunk with the case, so that she couldn’t roll even if she wanted to.

And at last she was able to relax.

In spite of the fact that all he’d been offered was a large bowl of noodle soup, Alex Whitbread was beginning to feel better.

Of course, he couldn’t expect complete recovery until the group had accepted him back. But he felt sure that, with a little bit of luck, he’d be able to convince Mother Hilda of his repentance. She was clever enough to see through most of his ploys, yes, but she was stupidly trusting, seeing the best in everybody and everything. And if he could just con
her
, the rest of them would follow like a flock of sheep through a hole in the fence.

There was just one thing...

He put a tentative foot out of bed and hauled himself to his feet, swayed, and abruptly sat down. Not only was the floor itself all a-tilt, his legs were still pretty weak.

Not ready yet then.

That was his first job, then: to get enough strength back to be able to deal with the kid from the magazine. He’d felt sure that she couldn’t have seen anything she shouldn’t have; as he’d told Hilda, when he’d got in through the window of her room in Hampstead, it had seemed that he’d found absolute proof of that just waiting for him on the table.

But, if that was the case, what was she doing here? Why had she come all the way to Bombay, and brought these two snoops with her? Who were they? Were they police? What was this ship he was on?

And what if she were to realise the true meaning of what she had seen? If she did, and if Mother Hilda were to talk to her, it would be the end for him.

He must make sure that she never reached the island...

Sarah found that, unaccountably, the very fact that she was tightly wedged into a position that made her one with the movement of the ship took away the ghastly nausea that came from the conflicting messages of her body. As long as she kept her eyes shut, held in the cradle of the bunk and Bob’s suitcase she was able to sink into a comatose semi-trance, and eventually into a deep dreamless sleep.

And, miracle of miracles, when she woke up - it was mid-afternoon, just after 3.30 - she not only felt quite better, but ravenously hungry, and eager to experience for herself what a real full gale felt like. She wasn’t likely to get another chance.

Food could wait.

She was beginning to get her sealegs too. Though the motion of the ship was just as extreme, it seemed to her to have lost its violence, and was more regular, more predictable. After all, she thought as she clambered up the ladder on her way to the upper deck, even Nelson used to be seasick when he went back to sea after a spell at home.

Sammy would have been proud of her. She was a real sailor after all.

When she poked her nose out of the door onto the deck, she realised why it felt so different. The howling gale had gone. There was now no more than a strong breeze; and the waves had settled into a deep rolling swell, which the
Hallaton
was punching through almost as if she was enjoying herself in the fitful sunlight. True, when she was in the trough, the tops were as high as the bridge, or even higher; and her bow was still alternately plunging into the water and pointing at the still turbulent sky. But at least she wasn’t rolling from side to side and staggering like a comedy drunk any more.

But the waves! As you rose to the top you could see them stretched in regular ranks far out to the horizon, and every one different and constantly changing, like a mobile work of art sculpted by a giant hand.

This was something like it! Clorinda would give her a double-page spread for shots like this.

Off she went to get her camera.

‘Take over, Number One. And try to keep the bloody ship steady, will you? Can you manage that, do you think? I’m going to get my head down. Give me a shake if there’s any change.’

Well, that’s got rid of him for a bit, thought the Brigadier as the door closed behind Eugene Hogben. For this relief, much thanks... Granny McDougal was always quoting Shake-speare.
Macbeth
, wasn’t it? Or
Hamlet
. One of those.

He looked doubtfully over at Pete Andrews. He was standing by the helmsman (who was still the grizzled Petty Officer Hardy, the veteran cox’n who had piloted them through the storm). He was staring grimly ahead, and showed no signs of turning the ship back onto the southbound course that would take them to Stella Island.

Should he say something?

He glanced at the door to the port wing of the bridge. The Doctor was still out there - hadn’t come in for hours. Perhaps he could persuade him to come and have a go.

On the other hand, he’d got short shrift from him when he’d suggested it earlier.

‘Er... Is there any chance of our getting back on course?’ he asked.

Andrews turned and looked at him, angry and preoccupied.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘I was just asking about the way we’re heading. I mean, now that the gale is over...’

Andrews’ face cleared, and he became, again, the amiable teddy-bear of a man they’d all come to respect. ‘Forgive me, sir. The last few hours have been a little stressful, to say the least. No, I’m afraid we’ll have to wait a while. It’s not just the wind, you see. With a swell like this, it still wouldn’t be safe.’

‘Ah! You mean we might... er... broach to?’

The First Lieutenant looked surprised. ‘Precisely,’ he said.

‘Yes, well...What does that mean exactly?’ It was hardly the sort of thing they taught at Sandhurst, for God’s sake!

Petty Officer Hardy took his eyes off the gyro-repeater compass for a moment, and started to speak, ‘Well, it’s like this... Oh sorry, sir.’

But the First Lieutenant didn’t seem to mind his interrup-tion. ‘No, no, Cox’n. You’ve had far more experience of this sort of thing than I have. I’ve spent most of my short career pootling round Hong Kong.’

The Brigadier was still irritated with himself for his lack of knowledge. ‘Heard the expression, of course. But I’ve never quite...’ He heard himself clearing his throat in a sort of

‘
Harrumph!’
Good God! He was turning into a real Colonel Blimp!

‘Yeah, right,’ said the Cox’n, keeping his eye on the compass, and automatically turning the wheel to keep them on course. ‘Well now, as you know, to keep the rudder working you’ve got to be moving through the water. Have to have
way on.
But the trouble is, if you’re going in the same direction as waves of any size, you lose way.’

‘If you try to go at the same speed, like surfing, then the rudder has no grip at all - and if you try to go faster or slower, you’re on a sort of moving switchback. You’re either slipping down the front of the wave, and speeding up, or sliding down the back, and slowing down.’

So you lose control. Of course.

‘So you lose control?’ the Brigadier said aloud.

‘You got it, sir. There’s always a time when the helm doesn’t answer at all - and the ship can swing round broadside on to the waves. And when that happens, if she happens to be rolling in the same direction as the waves...’

‘She can roll right over!’

‘Right. And it’s too late to say your prayers then.’

‘So that was broaching to’. Fair enough. As long as they knew what they were doing. But they were never going to get to the blasted island at this rate!

Brother Alex woke up feeling even better. One advantage of a high metabolic rate, he thought. He’d been well known for his drive even before, when he was in public life; like Winnie, he could get by on four hours’ sleep a night. And since he’d left politics, he’d benefited from the extraordinary access of energy, of sheer vigour, that went with becoming one of the Skang ‘teachers’.

He had no intention of losing that permanently. If he couldn’t get it back, along with all the rest of it, life had no meaning, no savour, no worth.

So what to do?

After all, he was there officially, albeit on sufferance. If he got to know these people, he might be able find out what their game was. But his most important job was dealing with the Smith girl. ASAP Get to know the layout of the vessel.

That was the thing to do. And the movements of the girl.

Sooner or later, he’d get her alone. And his immediate problem would be solved.

Over all the years of the Doctor’s jaunts through time and space, seeking the ultimate experience that he knew in his heart could never be found, it had become a joke, saying to those around him, ‘...there’s nothing we can do - but wait’.

He’d taught himself the art of waiting: the wide-open acceptance of every perception, which took him to a timeless place of satisfaction where he vanished into the ever-changing immediacy and sharp reality of a totally experienced world.

The hours of the storm could have lasted a day or a minute. There was nobody keeping an eye on the clock.

Yet the very alertness that informed his awareness could, if necessary, instantly bring him back to the inexorable flow of one damn thing after another (as he put it when trying to describe it later to a bemused Brigadier). And the sight of Sarah Jane Smith, hanging on with one hand to the lines of one of the ship’s boats in its davits, while she leaned out over the boiling sea, was enough to snap him back in an instant.

‘Sarah! For Pete’s sake! What do you think you’re doing?’

‘It’s all right, Doctor!’ she called, waving her little camera in the air. ‘Look, one hand for me and one for the ship!’

There was nothing he could do but watch as she clambered into ever more precarious positions, reaching out for the perfect shot.

At last she was satisfied, and carefully manoeuvred herself back onto the deck. With a cheery wave, she vanished round the corner.

She was an adult, after all; and she seemed to know what she was doing. With a mental shrug, the Doctor settled back into his corner, noticing that, in spite of his cloak, he was very nearly as wet as if he had been swimming fully dressed; and he examined with interest the clammy touch of his shirt on the skin of his back.

Sarah on the lifeboat no longer existed, at that moment; not even as a memory.

It was pure luck that the girl was going down the corridor just when Alex had made the - surprisingly small - effort to get into his clothes and set off on his first recce. He heard the footsteps coming round the corner and was just in time to pull himself back through the door, leaving a crack to peep through.